Column

  1. Math

    Disorder in the Deck

    Card players sometimes get lazy, shuffling a deck fewer times than necessary to randomize the cards. Indeed, persistently sloppy shuffling can have a significant impact on play–an effect that experts (and gamblers) can exploit to their advantage. However, the problem lay not in the computer but with human expectations. Subsequent research showed that hands in […]

    By Ivars Peterson
  2. Math

    Staying in Step

    Late in the winter of 1665, an ailing Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) was confined to his room for a few days. The Dutch physicist whiled away the hours of his confinement by closely observing and pondering the odd behavior of two pendulum clocks he had recently constructed. Huygens had obtained a patent on the first pendulum […]

    By Ivars Peterson
  3. Math

    Planes of Budapest

    Nearly every Sunday during the winter of 1933 in Budapest, a small group of students would meet somewhere in the city at a park or cafe to discuss mathematics.